Question:
As a practitioner, I want to know some technical things: how do you prepare your voice; modulate your vocal tone and pacing?  Also, if we record in our own voice, should we adjust the language to be in first person?
John

Dear John,
The main thing is to be well hydrated - drink lots of water and sleep with a humidifier. Also, keep in mind that coffee and alcohol will dry you out, requiring even more water drinking to compensate.  A tart apple, like a Granny Smith, will temporarily smooth out any scratchiness in your throat.  More lasting are some Chinese herbal supplements, recommended to me by the awesome Dr. Martha Howard – Superior Sore Throat Powder Spray by Good Harvest Trading Company and Crocodile Trade Mark Pill by Solstice Medicine Company. They’re pretty amazing.

As for tone and pacing, the key is to be relaxed and to speak normally (but into a good microphone to make up for the drop in volume in your voice), in sync with your own relaxed breathing.  No dramatic emphasis, no weird elocution, enunciation or grammar – speak the way you normally do, or you’ll throw yourself off.  The key is to just provide a platform for your own imagination to take off from, not to call attention to your voice.  I go into this in more detail in my last book, Invisible Heroes, in Chapter 10, “General Guided Imagery Wisdom & Tactics”, but those are the key points.  

With the affirmations, it makes sense to speak in the first person, but for the guided imagery, I think third person works fine.  The theory is that because it’s your own voice coming into your ears, it will be all the more congruent with your own energy, constitution and temperament, and will go in, smooth as silk for maximum impact.  And even though there’s no research to confirm that yet, it makes some logical sense.

Good luck and let me know how it works out.
All best,
Belleruth